Kukla's Korner Hockey

Kukla's Korner Hockey

Fire Dallas Eakins?

11/13/2013 at 3:59pm EST

Jim Matheson of the Edmonton Journal answers a few questions from readers...

Q: I don’t know how much longer Oilers GM Craig MacTavish can wait before he has to fire coach Dallas Eakins and clean up the mess himself à la Lou Lamoriello. What a freaking disaster.

A: Eakins is going nowhere. Hey, it’s 19 games into a four-year contract. I’d say he deserves a whole lot more time than that. This is hardly the NHL coming-out party Dallas Eakins wanted, though. With every Oilers’ loss, he meets the media and tries to put some positive spin on things unless it’s obvious there is no compete there. You are correct that New Jersey Devils GM Lou Lamoriello has stepped in as an interim guy a couple of times, when coaches Larry Robinson and Claude Julien were fired, but MacTavish believed in Eakins this spring when he hired him, and unless I’m reading the wrong tea leaves, this is his guy. It is very disturbing, however, how incredibly bad the Oilers have been defensively. That falls on the head coach. After 19 games last year, when Ralph Krueger was at the helm, they’d given up 54 goals. They’ve given up 75 this season.

a few more Edmonton related questions...

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Paul Kukla founded Kukla’s Korner in 2005 and the site has since become the must-read site on the ‘net for all the latest happenings around the NHL.

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